Being a HUGE fan of the first Riyria books I went right to Amazon to try and pick this up but all I could find under Riyria Chronicles was another title that was available in Kindle format only.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you very much!

Preorder pages are not up quite yet - but I think they should be "any day now" according to my editor. You can add the book to your goodreads shelf from this link.

I've read Thief of Swords which is, I think, the first two? short novels/novellas of the first series (they're interconnected). They're quite good, I feel. They are not "traditional" fantasy, as opposed to "non-traditional" fantasy because, as I've explained to Mike, the dark stuff has also been a long time regular fantasy "tradition" and Mike's line of "tradition" is still very current and common. (I still owe him a list.) And it's also dark. There's violence and black humor, and genocide and other fun stuff. People who like Abercrombie or Erikson are not going to find Sullivan's stuff strange at all. But if you are looking at antecedents, then yes, Fritz Lieber is obviously it, along with Zelazny, C.J. Cherryh, Peter David, Trudi Canavan, more recently Jon Sprunk, Chris Wooding, Felix Gilman, Scott Lynch, Douglas Hulick, Patrick Rothfuss, etc.

There used to be a saying: "Han Solo with a sword stories" (which is funny since Han Solo is based on Robin Hood and other rogues with swords.) Sullivan's series could definitely fit that. The dialogue is very good. The first scene, which was apparently added for the publisher edition, got me to buy. And what's nice is that he doesn't just stick everything into his two leads (who bicker lovingly like fishwives,) but that he has a lot of really good side characters and other majors. The second part of Thief has a whole village of characters and it might have been kind of cloying, but Mike avoids that for me and pulls off a combo that is poignant, darkly comic and sometimes scary intense. He knows how to work a scene and his military stuff is pretty good. And he comes up with really odd, interesting situations. I'm thinking particularly of a set of stairs (those who have read it will know what I'm talking about.) Quite often, you have thief characters who don't really show off any fancy thieving skills -- that's not an issue in this series.

The Crown Tower is a prequel. It takes place about 12 years before the events of the first book in the Riyria Revelations.

Originally Posted by KatG

I've read Thief of Swords which is, I think, the first two? short novels/novellas of the first series (they're interconnected). They're quite good, I feel. They are not "traditional" fantasy, as opposed to "non-traditional" fantasy because, as I've explained to Mike, the dark stuff has also been a long time regular fantasy "tradition" and Mike's line of "tradition" is still very current and common. (I still owe him a list.) And it's also dark. There's violence and black humor, and genocide and other fun stuff. People who like Abercrombie or Erikson are not going to find Sullivan's stuff strange at all. But if you are looking at antecedents, then yes, Fritz Lieber is obviously it, along with Zelazny, C.J. Cherryh, Peter David, Trudi Canavan, more recently Jon Sprunk, Chris Wooding, Felix Gilman, Scott Lynch, Douglas Hulick, Patrick Rothfuss, etc.

Yes, Theft of swords are the first two books of "The Riyria Revealtions" it consists of The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha. Each of those novels is about 100,000 words long, and yes they are interconnected.

Originally Posted by KatG

There used to be a saying: "Han Solo with a sword stories" (which is funny since Han Solo is based on Robin Hood and other rogues with swords.) Sullivan's series could definitely fit that. The dialogue is very good. The first scene, which was apparently added for the publisher edition, got me to buy. And what's nice is that he doesn't just stick everything into his two leads (who bicker lovingly like fishwives,) but that he has a lot of really good side characters and other majors. The second part of Thief has a whole village of characters and it might have been kind of cloying, but Mike avoids that for me and pulls off a combo that is poignant, darkly comic and sometimes scary intense. He knows how to work a scene and his military stuff is pretty good. And he comes up with really odd, interesting situations. I'm thinking particularly of a set of stairs (those who have read it will know what I'm talking about.) Quite often, you have thief characters who don't really show off any fancy thieving skills -- that's not an issue in this series.

Found out the release date of the second in this series, The Rose and the Thorn will be in Sep 2013. Originally I thought it would come out in January 2014 but Orbit is going to do it's "one a month" release thing.

Thanks for the info. Do you yet know if The Rose and the Thorn will have a US release in book form? Also, any idea if The Viscount and the Witch will ever get a print release (maybe in an anthology)?

Yes The Rose and the Thorn will be released in the US in ebook, print, and audio - the "pre-order" page just isn't up yet.

The Viscount and the Witch....I may one day do a compilation of shorts and print it. I would need a few more shorts first though. If you want a copy of a .pdf that you can print and read - send me an email at michael (dot) sullivan (dot) dc (at) gmail (dot) com.